Big Beat Steve

What I'm saying now is just a spotty observation which may not be widely representative but it did strike me as surprising ... Yesterday I set up a stall at a local fleamarket and of course displayed my two crates of vinyl for sale (about 75% jazz with an emphasis on swing, plus a good bit of bop, cool and classic/trad/oldtime jazz, the rest being 50s R'n'R, R&B/blues plus some Easy Listening). Not that I sold a huge lot, but it was amazing how many youngish browsers (from their late teens to mid-20s student age) browsed the record bins (though it clearly said "Jazz" on the boxes ), and from some of their comments it was more than just curiosity. One chap (a University student) not only specifically asked for oldtime jazz (rare enough anyway ) but admitted liking this early roots music a lot, and went on to ask if by any chance I had any Bluegrass too. Sorry, no - but when he mentioned the Carter Family I tipped him to a few early Country string band artists to check out in addition to pre-Depression Classic Jazz, provided he'd be willing to deal with the lo-fi recording quality of the reissues of many of these (a good sign being that he already was aware of the problem ). Amazing moments, all in all, and maybe a sign that there is some subculture thing going on somewhere? Which BTW was confirmed by several Gen Z punters I saw pulling out records by the likes of Louis Armstrong or Bessie Smith at our local record clearout sale in April. The records were more of the "Best of " variety but seemed to reflect a willingness to "explore". Not a bad thing at any rate.

Thanks everyone! Amazing that this was held back for so long. A side note that may not be documented or known everywhere else: The writeup of the session in Jazz Magazine says that the original plans were to bring in Jimmy Woode as the bassist for this session, making it an ALL-expat lineup. But as the session seems to have been organized at rather short notice, Cannonball Adderley was unable to contact Jimmy Woode who was nowhere to be found. It turned out he was out playing gigs - somewhere in the Swedish province! So ever-dependable Pierre Michelot was called in.

While reading the recently-published Don Byas biography ("Sax Expat") I chanced upon a highly affordable copy of the CBS "A Tribute to Cannonball" Don Byas/Bud Powell LP of 1961 and took it home (and like it a lot): https://www.discogs.com/de/master/407175-Don-Byas-Bud-Powell-A-Tribute-To-Cannonball Looking for period reviews of the record in my historical jazz magazines, however, I drew a blank, and the Discogs page seems to indicate that the above 1979 release actually was the original one. During my searches, though, I discoverd a 4-page photo spread on this very recording session ("Cannonball supervising a jam session of the exilees") published in the February 1962 issue of (French) "Jazz Magazine". In addition to other background info this states that "the session yielded enough material for a 45-minute record that Columbia will release in the USA in spring (i.e. of 1962), and it is going to be billed to The Kenny Clarke Quintet." Anyone among you fellow discophiles familiar with anything of that kind? I usually do trust Discogs for such basic facts, so is it really so that this session sat in the can until 1979? (The new Don Byas bio is remarkably vague about when this record actually hit the market and may or may have not added to the discographical awareness of the jazz public of Don Byas in his lifetime.)

Interesting again. In a way, a "today's look" sum-up of this documentary, I guess? Especially for those who haven't had a look inside the book. BTW, here is what seems to be a longer version (09:02) of the video in the thread opener's link: Why did BBC shorten it, I wonder?

Just received my copy through the mail. Looking forward to some Easter reading. But I'm beginning to see why the paperback edition is rather affordable and waaay cheaper than the hardcover edition ($30 vs $99): Print-on-Demand! My copy has this statement on the final inside page: Printed in France by Amazon, Bretigny-sur-Orge, FR But printing quality and photo reproduction look absolutely OK.

Thanks! Both for the review (which is helpful, though I guess I'd betteer not read it again before having finished the book - just so as not to be sidetracked unduly ) and for the link to Knauer's website. Excellent news that Wolfram Knauer's reviews will keep coming on his own site. They have always been a highlight of the Darmstadt Jazz Institute website, but were sorely missed (at least by me ) when he went into retirement and that section of the Institute site went dormant.

Just received my shipping notice from Amazon. Anyone in the US already received their copy? (Just curious ...)

All too involved for a book like this IMO, particularly if you care about the photos for permanent and TANGIBLE reference. Would it be possible to EASILY print out Kindle contents page by page by now? Besides, do you actually OWN a Kindle ebook forever and ever? Too many snags, really ... (Or should I say "Emperor's Clothes"? )

The "Sittin' In" book on Kindle? What a waste of presentation and format ... (regardless of how cheap that ebook version is). I can only imagine this will trigger some into getting the "real thing".

I'm not familiar with these labels but broadly know who Sonny Lester was (as a producer). So I felt the need to read up on him online now and see that he has an entry dedicated to him on a site named "spaceagepop". 😉 So maybe this (also) explains that (in terms of immediate Soul jazz credentials with the harder-core jazz fraternity)??

Brief but very interesting, thanks Allen ... I marked and copied the entire text (plus the Randall's Island photo of Clyde Hart) into a Word file for permanent future reference. No popups there, but of course I'll have to pull the sound samples one by one from my collection.

Digging this up now ... I had bookmarked the above site on a previous PC of mine and remembering the valuable info it contained, I now found a printout of a few excerpts from that site in my files. But trying to access the site it seems it has gone belly up. Or did I overlook something? Does anyone know if that site is really dead ot if its contents maybe have migrated to a different site under a totally different link? Thanks in advance.

OK, so the "blame" is on them ... 😄

Somehow it looks like Riverside contracted an artist who was more used to painting pics of down-home country blues artists for the cover artwork of that "Portait of Wes" LP.